


One Train’s Survival Depends on the Other Derailed

by elijah_was_a_prophet



Category: Shoujo Kakumei Utena | Revolutionary Girl Utena
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon, Screenplay/Script Format
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:41:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27233668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elijah_was_a_prophet/pseuds/elijah_was_a_prophet
Summary: It's about remembering, isn't it?
Relationships: Kiryuu Touga/Saionji Kyouichi
Comments: 3
Kudos: 10
Collections: Fic In A Box





	One Train’s Survival Depends on the Other Derailed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [venndaai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/venndaai/gifts).



[At evening. Two boys waiting. Their car has broken down on the side of the road, and the engine is smoking. Neither seems to notice. Touga, the broader of the two, is leaning against a lamppost while his companion Saionji kneels in the grass.]

**Touga** : I checked the gas before we left. And the tire pressure. 

**Saionji:** But not the oil.

**Touga:** I didn’t think I had to check the oil. The mechanic does that. And you were supposed to take the car to the mechanic, which you didn’t do, and now we’ll be late to my sister’s house.

**Saionji:** Like you care.

**Touga:** ‘Like you care.’ Those are funny words. 

[He laughs once, then shoves off the post and goes to kneel in the grass next to Saionji. There he sees what Saionji has been looking at: an anthill, crawling and pulsing. At one time he would have stepped in it just to see the ants panic. Now instead he watches a line of workers carry breadcrumbs down into the earth.]

**Touga** : They work so hard they don’t know we’re here. And they don’t know why they work. But everyday the ants come out and walk in circles. Life must be easy that way.

**Saionji:** I think they’re miserable.

**Touga:** How?

**Saionji:** How? All they do is work until they die, and then their corpse gets throw outside the hill and stepped on by new workers. Or they get stepped on, or eaten, or smashed into paste, and nobody cares. Life’s brutal for ants!

**Touga:** You’re looking at it from the wrong angle. The ants don’t know what relaxation is. They have no concept of death. An ant that does not work has no purpose.

[The sound of a truck comes up behind them. It’s the towing company, and the driver that Touga called. Saionji and Touga climb into the taxi with their luggage and watch as the still steaming body of the car is loaded up.]

**Saionji:** That car cannot drive, and therefore it has no purpose…

**Touga:** Exactly.

[A short time later. They are riding around a curve of the highway. The curve never ends. The streetlights are all yellow. A familiar song plays on the radio, muffled by the glass of the partition. Saionji has let his head rest on Touga’s shoulder; the contact is allowed but not encouraged. It is a gesture tender and not licentious; simply put he has no idea what to do with it.]

**Saionji:** Do you think Nanami has noticed we aren’t there yet?

**Touga:** Maybe. She’s become very strange in the past few months, since the trip to Tsugaru. Her department went to study old pottery, and she came back talking about how they were alive.

**Saionji:** They?

**Touga:** Dogū. The figurines. She’s got a theory now, about aliens and eggs. When I told her it was ridiculous she said it would start a scientific revolution. Crack open the academy’s shell.

**Saionji:** ‘Cracking open the shell.’ Those are funny words.

**Touga:** They seem familiar. Like a phrase I heard in a dream once, that sprung into my head fully formed. Those happen often. In my dreams I’m in a different life.

**Saionji:** That’s common. Nobody dreams about their own life.

**Touga:** But I always drown at the end. Death by water, at the end of every dream. I asked a psychiatrist about it once.

**Saionji:** I never thought I’d see you let someone else into your head.

**Touga:** It was politely ordered. He had a very nice office. Tasteful prints on the walls, and the couch wasn’t from a discount store. I told him about my childhood, and he nodded, then told me to come back the next week. I never did.

**Saionji:** And the dream about drowning?

**Touga:** My subconscious. Something struggling to break free. His words, not mine. When I think about drowning I think about Nanami, and the kitten she killed.

**Saionji:** I don’t remember that. We must have been very young.

**Touga:** She was very young, I remember, and she cried when she realized what she’d done. But it’s not- the kitten was a bribe. So now I don’t feel so upset about it. She always destroyed the things that Father bribed me with, and then cried to get out of trouble. It’s her way.

**Saionji:** I think she does cruel things because they amuse her, not because she was trying to do anything for you.

**Touga:** I didn’t say she was. Stop misinterpreting what I say and listen. You’ve always done that, ever since, whenever. Now I can’t remember.

**Saionji:** Because we’ve known each other so long. All the memories just blur together.

[The driver stretches their hand out and turns the music down.]

**Driver:** On your left you’ll see Nemuro Hall. If you look.

[Touga looks to his left. There are the streetlamps. There is the curve of the highway. There is an ocean, where there once was something else. A city? He would have seen the glare of the lights. They were driving through a forest, before, on the way to Nanami’s house. He remembers that morning waking up at Saionji’s house and plotting the drive in his head. Eight kilometers north and over the Miyami Gorge. Twelve kilometers east. Then sixteen north, which was where they broke down.]

**Touga:** I think you’re lost. My sister lives in the mountains.

**Saionji:** She lives by the ocean. You woke up this morning and told me that at night when she calls you can hear the waves in the background. And then the phrase, ‘it reminds me of drowning’. Strange. You’ve been thinking about your dreams all day, haven’t you?

**Touga:** I don’t remember. Driver, are we close?

**Driver:** We’re here. Did you see Nemuro Hall?

**Touga:** I saw the ocean.

**Saionji:** I saw the city across the bay. In the sunset it looked like it was on fire.

[They disembark from the cab and walk up to the front door of the house. Sure enough, the waves are audible in the distance. Once again Touga remembers that he’s forgotten something. A school on the hill, and a summer than never ends. It’s autumn and the sea breeze is strong, promising rain. Saionji knocks on the door again.]

**Nanami:** I’m not paying the NHK fee. Go away.

**Touga:** It’s me and Saionji.

[She opens the door. Her eyes narrow, as if she’s trying to decide who he is.]

**Nanami:** Saionji, if it’s another scam-

**Saionji:** It’s your brother! The one whose cat you drowned.

**Nanami:** A cat who drowned, or my brother who drowned? I’ve had both, you know, and I don’t appreciate you banging on my door and bringing it up! Either leave or take this man away, I don’t care.

**Touga:** Nanami, do you remember going to Nice one summer, and I pushed you in the pool and then panicked because you couldn’t swim? It was the summer break during your second grade. I had to dive in and save you.

**Nanami:** That was the year my brother drowned. We’d gone to Morioka, and while we were walking down the Shizukuishi River to visit the hot springs a girl walking on the other bank with her parents fell in. He dived in to save her. She lived and he didn’t. I hate that girl for killing my brother, and I remember I flew at her in a range, slapping her across the face. She had blue eyes. I don’t know her name, or if we ever found out.

**Saionji:** You told me her eyes were green.

**Nanami:** What does it matter? My brother died. And now you’ve claiming you’re him, when he had a kinder face. You both disgust me!

[She slams the door shut.]

**Saionji:** A coffin. We met a girl in a coffin once, and you asked her why she was there. 

**Touga:** That girl had blue eyes. A very clear blue, like cold still water reflecting the sky. 

[He turns to face Saionji, brushing their hands, maintaining eye contact. The wind coming off the ocean picks up and casts his hair across his face. He looks dashing, like a prince who should be riding down from the mountains atop a horse.]

**Touga:** We can’t stay here. I don’t think Nanami will let us.

**Saionji:** Then what are we supposed to do, walk?

**Touga:** Yes. The town’s not far. And once we get there I have a phone call to make. A woman I knew from the fencing club. You never met her, since she didn’t like kendo.

**Saionji:** I dueled a few times, Back then we thought we had the power to cause world revolution in every stroke. Ah, the idealism of youth.

**Touga:** ‘World revolution’. Those are funny words. As if we could survive one.

[Turning together, they head back up the road towards the town. It would have been easier had they had a car, but there isn’t enough money left to consider calling a cab. The waves are dark and the night is dark and it would be a perfect night for stargazing were they no so fixated on their goal. Touga puts his arm around Saionji’s shoulder and isn’t sure what to do with the gesture, as it pales compared to any other familiarity they might have had. If they had a past they do not remember, but for now they have a present.] 


End file.
